The Canadian was not downgraded against the defending Stanley Cup champions, and he even offered a victory when interim head coach Martin St-Louis returned to Tampa, a city where he played for a long time.
Nick Suzuki decided in a shootout and the Montreal squad defeated the Lightning 5-4 on Saturday at Amalie Arena.
Suzuki ended the game by scoring with a superb change of direction and a backhand shot into the top corner.
St. Louis was back at the site where he won the Stanley Cup in 2004. He has played in 972 of his 1,134 NHL games as a Lightning and holds the team record with 953 points.
Cole Caufield, Corey Schueneman, Josh Anderson and Jesse Ylönen scored in regulation time for the Canadian (19-39-11). Jake Allen stopped 37 shots in 65 minutes.
The Canadiens concluded their four-game road trip with a 1-2-1 record. He ended his journey on a high, after tougher performances against the mighty Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes.
Nikita Kucherov had a goal and two assists, while Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli also scored for the Lightning (43-19-6), who had won their previous four games. Goaltender Brian Elliott stopped 27 shots before the shootout.
Defender Jordan Harris was playing his first NHL game with the Canadiens, having signed his rookie contract last Saturday after a four-year internship at Northeastern University.
Forward Ryan Poehling was back in action after missing nine games with an upper body injury. Chris Wideman and Laurent Dauphin have been dropped from the squad.
The Canadiens will be back at the Bell Center on Tuesday, and will host the Ottawa Senators there.
Action at both ends
The Canadian fired seven of the first eight shots on goal in the game, but he came up against Elliott.
The Lightning opened the scoring on their third shot of the period at 8:57. Stamkos deflected a throw-in from Kucherov in the opener after breaking free from Justin Barron’s cover pushing him.
The local players returned to the charge at 13:32, during a numerical inferiority. Anderson lost control of the puck, allowing the Lightning to attack two-on-one.
Cirelli deflected the puck into the goal with her skate, in addition to hitting Allen’s right pad on the sequence. The goal was disputed by the Canadiens, but NHL officials ruled there was no obstruction against Allen on the streak.
The Canadian did not give up and continued to attack Elliott’s net. The latter was smoking against Christian Dvorak, going from a roll to make the stop with his right leg in the air.
The Canadian’s efforts were finally rewarded at 8:57 of the second period. Caufield beat Elliott in the upper end after a two-man attack on the keeper along with Rem Pitlick.
The Lightning responded at 11:34, when Kucherov hit the target on the power play with a powerful one-timer.
Once again, the Canadian found a way to climb the slope. Schueneman closed the gap at 13:56 with a long shot that deflected off Ondrej Palat before moving the ropes. Anderson tied the game 1:54 later, scoring on a breakaway.
The Lightning were unfazed by the turn of events and took a 4-3 lead with 15.6 seconds left in the second period. Point deflected a Palat throw-in to the slot in the goal on another power play.
Ylönen replied for the Canadian with a good one-timer after 2:18 of play in the third period.
The goalies closed the door afterwards, forcing a tiebreaker to be presented. Suzuki finally played the heroes in a shootout.